Fighter/Cleric dual wield and level question
Royce1987
Member Posts: 89
Currently on a level 4 berserker and plan to dual at level five with 2 pips in dual wield and 3 pips in mace, when the cleric reaches level 8 and has a final pip to assign can I put it in the dual wield style or will the game only allow two for cleric proficiency distribution? Thanks.
Also, I'd like to dual the fighter at level six but it seems I'd miss most of the game as a fledgling cleric, thoughts?
Also, I'd like to dual the fighter at level six but it seems I'd miss most of the game as a fledgling cleric, thoughts?
0
Comments
And I don't think dualling the fighter at level 6 would be that bad. You'll probably gain a few levels in cleric pretty quickly, so you should be able to carry your weight in the party member just with your role as a cleric, even before you get your fighter levels back. If you meta-game a bit, there are a handful of situations where you can get a bunch of XP really fast pretty easily. For instance, if you kick everyone else out of your party and clear out the basilisk map with a scroll of protection from petrification, you'll probably get to level 6 right there.
You should be able to get the third point in dual-wield, since the game allows for fighter-esque proficiency limits post-dual. Whether or not this is intended to be legal is the source of much debate.
Do keep in mind that, if you dualled at level 6 Fighter, you'd be up to 4 proficiency in maces and 2 in Dual Wield. Then, at cleric level 8 near the end of the game, you could actually reach grandmastery (assuming I'm up to date on BG1 dual-class proficiency stacking). This would be vastly superior to a third point in dual-wield, which isn't particularly useful.
Without grossly abusing some engine bugs, BG2 introduced, you shouldn't be able to even GM in BG1 (Blackpits though would allow it).
BG1 was mostly correct, in that it only allowed GM while a single class fighter, or specialization while a multi-fighter or ranger/paladins. Fighters that dual into something else couldn't advance weapons beyond their normal limits for that class, which was actually correct for PnP, since further specialization is part of advancing as a fighter, and dual-classes advance only as their new class (a lot of people miss understand thinking Specialization and GM is a transferable class feature, it's not, it's a form of advancement, just like thieves gaining new BS levels, or spell casters gaining new spell level access. You keep any specialization you've already achieved, but simply can't progress any further, since your new class doesn't focus on development of combat skills like a fighter does. The PnP rules take it a step further by preventing X-Class>Fighter duals from going above specialization (or no specializing at all, if the GM rules aren't used), since they lack the proper training only being trained originally as a fighter gives (same applies to Fallen Ranger/Paladins who immediately become fighters of their level after falling, they can continue to specialize (**) if GM rules are used, but can't go higher).
BG1's big thing is that it allowed you to be proficient and specialize (and beyond) in Sub-groups rather then specific weapons. Which rules for that actually do exist (it costs 2 points for a warrior (or bard), 3 for anyone else, but still only applies to weapons that class can wield normally), but you can't specialize in a sub-group, only be proficient. Specialization requires spending 2 points in a specific weapon, or 5 for GM, but it's a pretty good deal for some, like Bards, since 2 points can potentially buy them proficiency is 3-4 weapons types (there's a lot more types of weapons then are implemented in BG), since they can't specialize anyway).
Basically, the 2 most noteworthy levels of proficiency are Specialization (2 stars) and Grandmastery (5 stars) because both grant an extra 1/2 attack per round. 3 stars also provides a decent benefit, but 4 stars isn't terribly useful unless you're on your way to 5, which, as mentioned above, you can't do without some dual class shenanigans.
As long as such things are spelled out in the appropriate manuals or on-screen text, just like any good DM will spell out house rules before character creation even begins, I have no issues with it.
Torment and IWD are somewhat excusable, since they're both different types of games (IWD being a combat heavy dungeon crawler, so it uses much closer to PnP combat mechanics (And buffed BARDS of all things to actually be a little stronger then their PnP incarnation, I suppose since the lack of social interaction quests (there are a few, but not a whole lot...and the lack of spell scrolls to spread around) make that a little understandable...but why on earth did they implement proper Bard High Level spell casting tables (up to 8th spell level), in a game where you're never going to use them without xp cap removers and blatant replaying (or cheating) to get enough XP to get there, meanwhile BG2, which could've put them into use, didn't and nerf'd Bards even further then BG1 by restricting their proper strength in the newly added dual-wielding to proficient only, when all rogues are able to max it (well, technically they can use which ONE of their 3 styles to maximize, but two weapon is really the obvious choice), while Torment was more story-focused and let the combat and character rules slide...A LOT...)
Technically core specialization isn't optional. If you aren't using any of the various proficiency system rules, then a single-class fighter (and ONLY a single class fighter) chooses 1 type of weapon at creation to be specialized in, to which he gains an extra 1/2 attack and +1 hit, +2 damage when using that type of weapon (Fallen Paladin and Rangers don't, since they weren't a Fighter at creation, multi and X>Fighter don't since they aren't single class).